Yearning of grass
There's a story from the Jewish mystical tradition, passed down through generations and written in many forms, including in Bereishit Rabbah (a compilation of oral stories about the Torah written down sometime in the 2nd-5th centuries CE). It describes how sitting upon every blade of grass is an angel whispering to it, again and again, "Grow! Grow!"
What might we make of this? The suggestion that everything needs guidance resonates, that even the singular blade of grass grows with the encouragement of a coach. At the moment, I feel particularly moved by the notion that the exercise of will is a necessity, that growth requires the desire and yearning to grow. But, essentially, this story of the angels upon the blades of grass adds a caveat: this yearning is not entirely incumbent upon us to create from within. If we pause and listen closely, we too may hear the divine encouragement and imperative whispered to us.
Yearning as key to transformation
Jewish mysticism offers another tale about yearning: a man sits in a cemetery, waiting for a woman who promised to meet and marry him. She never arrives and yet he remains, every day his yearning for her arrival growing deeper and stronger. After much time passes, his yearning having grown so profound as to encompass him, he forgets entirely about the woman who never came, and this yearning of his detaches from the object of desire and transforms into a pure yearning directed toward the divine. His personal longing transcends into connection with something greater.
This is the power of yearning: to yearn is to transform, and to transform is to live.
Yearning for yearning
Once, in college, I was studying with a friend in the library and couldn't focus (a recurring theme in my life). When my friend asked—perhaps a bit annoyedly—why I wasn't working, I confessed I was distracted by a sense of wanting something, of angst, of yearning.
"What are you yearning for?" my friend asked. "I yearn for something to yearn for," I replied. My friend burst out laughing, and momentarily, my angst settled.
Yearning for depth
What do I yearn for right now? For the resilience of all of us to resist what offends our souls, for people to come together and stand collectively in strength to say to those forces of exploitation and abuse: "Stop. No more."
To have the fortitude to do this, I want people to appreciate their own capacity for depth, for authenticity, for connection to something greater. We all have access to that great unspoken pool of being in which we can immerse ourselves in silence and stillness. The angels are on our shoulders too, whispering to us to find our will to remain steadfast through shivers of fear.
Yearning in the body
These days, I feel the geyser of yearning rising, pushing. Each morning after meditation and reciting Modeh Ani (the gratitude prayer), I read the news and feel it intensely. In the abstract, I yearn for a calmer, kinder, more righteous world. But I can only contribute in the most local of ways—with my partner, family, friends, and community.
Yet this yearning is too great to contain. It itches under my skin, wanting release. Writing helps, but even that isn't enough. I feel it moving from my unsettled mind into my legs, because my legs can walk, my legs can march.
Yearning with feet
As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel powerfully reminded us after marching with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma:
“For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying."
Our deepest yearnings must manifest not just in words but in action—we pray with our feet when we march for justice, when we physically stand for what we believe.
I yearn to convince others of what is feeling more and more clear to me—that we need to show our yearning in our bodies, that we need to march to show our resistance, we need to march for our whole generation, because ultimately our bodies are the last line of defense for those weaker than us.
Yearning to wake
But these words may all feel too aspirational to be energizing rather than exhausting right now. So I continue to yearn—for the right words, for the low path of the earth emanating from its core to reveal itself, for the winter to thaw and for hearts to wake up! First with silent determination and the ability to listen, then with an orientation toward action.
I yearn for my heart to open my mouth, for my words to speak directly to others' hearts. I yearn to make myself understood in that way.
I remind myself again and again: to yearn is to live. When we stop yearning—for connection, for justice, for a better world—we stop truly living. Even when we feel powerless, our personal yearning, like that of the man in the cemetery, can transform into something that moves beyond the individual and into the collective, the divine, the revolutionary.
Let us pause and listen for the angels on our shoulders whispering to us, “Grow! Move!”
It's almost like I had forgotten about the word yearn before reading your post. It reminds me of the Socrates quote, "The unexamined life is not worth living." I've always struggled to explain this drive to people who don't yearn for this evolution and understanding. Yearn is the perfect word. For me yearn is the turning wheels of forward movement and progress.
Lovely reflections. I admire your clear-eyed insights.